DEVILS LAKE, N.D. (Reuters) — Spring wheat yield potential in northwestern North Dakota was trending as the biggest in at least seven years, but much of the crop was behind its typical development schedule following late planting, scouts on an annual tour found on Wednesday.
“It has a long ways to go,” said Kelly McMonagle, a crop specialist at North Dakota State University who was a scout on the Wheat Quality Council’s tour of the state.
Yields were pegged at 48.4 bushels per acre, based on samples taken from 150 fields across northern stretches of North Dakota. That compares with 45 bushels per acre a year ago and the tour’s five-year average for the area of 44.7 bushels per acre.
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The potential seen on Wednesday was the biggest since at least 2007, the earliest date that records were available for.
But the crop still must mature through multiple development stages before harvest, leaving it at risk to a change in the weather, which has been near perfect since planting.
“It looks late,” said Reid Christopherson, executive director of the South Dakota Wheat Commission who was a scout on the Wheat Quality Council’s tour of the state. “My biggest fear is even though it looks good, are they going to get the moisture they need now this late in the summer to convert it to grain? A week of 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) could make it sick in a hurry I am afraid.”
The three-day crop tour kicked off on Tuesday, with scouts fanning out from Fargo, North Dakota, to sample fields across the state, by far the largest U.S. producer of spring wheat. Scouts also surveyed some fields in South Dakota and Minnesota.
On Tuesday, scouts projected yields across the southern portion of North Dakota at 48.3 bushels per acre, 13 percent bigger than the tour’s five-year average for the area. Scouts will survey fields in eastern North Dakota on Thursday morning.
The tour will release final yield projections for spring and durum wheat on Thursday afternoon.
The U.S. Agriculture Department has forecast U.S. 2014 production of hard red spring wheat at 520 million bushels, up 30 million bushels from a year ago.
USDA estimated the average U.S. yield of spring wheat other than durum at 45.5 bushels per acre and the North Dakota yield at 46 bushels per acre.
